Episode 21 University Challenge

University Challenge!

Asking the questions - Jeremy Paxman.

Hello. Ahead of us lies another 30 minutes of panning for gold

in the babbling waters of the student mind

with a place in the quarter-finals for whichever team glitters tonight.

The team from Christ Church, Oxford were on impressive form in Round One against the University of Bath

whom they beat by 270 points to 105, putting them among the highest scoring teams through to this stage.

Mathematics, physics and classical music were among their strengths

and whatever happens tonight, they include some of the best-dressed students to appear on this programme

since television went into colour. Let's meet them again.

Hello. I'm Thomas Hine from Middlesex reading Ancient and Modern History.

I'm Will Peveler from Southampton and I'm reading Chemistry.

-Their captain.

-I'm George Scratcherd from Northumberland,

reading for a DPhil in History.

I'm Nimish Telang from Pittsburgh and I'm reading Mathematics.

APPLAUSE

The team from Manchester University also had a walk in the park in Round One

when they defenestrated Selwyn College, Cambridge by 255 to 70.

That was despite a lamentable ignorance of 20th century opera and not knowing much about Scotland,

but they did know about Descartes, the history of fingerprinting and what goes into eau-de-cologne.

Let's meet the team again.

Hi, I'm Luke Kelly from Kent and I'm studying History.

I'm Michael McKenna from Lancashire and I'm studying Biochemistry.

-Their captain.

-I'm Tristan Burke from Yorkshire,

studying English Literature.

I'm Paul Joyce from Lancashire,

studying for a Masters in Social Research, Methods and Statistics.

APPLAUSE

Usual rules. 10 points for starters, 15 for bonuses, 5-point penalties for incorrect interruptions.

Fingers on the buzzers. Here's your first starter for 10.

Which 19th century figure fought for the Liberal Coalition in the Uruguayan Civil War,

during which time he adopted the red shirt associated with...

-Garibaldi.

-Garibaldi is correct, yes.

The first set of bonuses, Manchester, are on theatre.

Firstly, "self-pitying snivel" is how The Evening Standard greeted the premiere

in 1956 of which three-act play whose action takes place in a one-room flat in the Midlands?

-Look Back In Anger.

-Correct. Which theatre critic and supporter of the play wrote,

"I doubt if I could love anyone who did not wish to see Look Back In Anger"?

-Kenneth Tynan.

-Correct. Described by Tynan as "the completest young pup in our literature

"since Hamlet, Prince of Denmark," who is the protagonist of Look Back In Anger?

-Jimmy Porter.

-Correct. Another starter question.

What final three letters are shared by words meaning: pretence of strength or confidence to deceive,

the end part of a sleeve,

a yellowish-beige colour...

-U-F-F.

-Correct.

Your first set of bonuses are on football clubs.

Firstly, the only Chilean side to have won the Copa Libertadores of South America,

which Santiago club takes its name from a Mapuche chief

who resisted the Spanish colonialists of the 16th century?

WHISPERING

-Boca Juniors?

-No, it's Colo Colo.

Willem II is a club based in which Dutch city where the future monarch had his military HQ

during the Belgian uprising of 1830?

-Antwerp? Antwerp?

-No, Tilburg. Which Brazilian football club takes its name from the Portuguese explorer

who was the first westerner to sail round the Cape of Good Hope to Asia?

-Vasco da Gama.

-Correct. Another starter. Answer as soon as you buzz.

Light from the Sun takes around 8 minutes, 20 seconds to reach Earth,

a distance of one astronomical unit.

How many astronomical units does light travel in a day? You can have 5 units either way.

-30.

-No. Manchester, one of you buzz?

-25.

-You're just making it up, aren't you?

-Of course I am.

-It's 173. Right, ten points for this.

Quote: "Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance."

In which novel of 1813 do those words appear?

-Pride And Prejudice.

-Correct.

Your bonuses, Christ Church, this time are on a ritual.

Meaning "act of faith", what phrase is used for the burning at the stake of heretics

condemned by the Inquisition, last carried out in Spain in 1781?

-Auto-da-fe.

-Correct. "The burning of a few people alive by a slow fire and with great ceremony

"is an infallible preventative of earthquakes," wrote Voltaire,

attacking the rituals carried out after the earthquake in 1755 in which city?

-Lisbon.

-Correct. An auto-da-fe begins at the end of the 3rd Act of which opera by Verdi,

based on a play by Schiller, its title character being a 16th century Prince of Asturias?

WHISPERING

It's Don...

- Don Giovanni? - No, it's not Don Giovanni.

-I think we need an answer.

-Don Giovanni.

-Don Giovanni?! No, it's Don Carlos.

Ten points for this. Listen carefully.

In terms of postal and internet abbreviations,

if Alabama is Albania and Georgia is Gabon, what is California?

-Canada.

-Canada is correct, yes.

Postal abbreviations, internet designations.

Your bonuses this time are on mammalian blood.

Having a kidney-shaped nucleus, what are the largest leucocytes?

The precursors of macrophages, they are produced in bone marrow and stored mainly in the spleen.

WHISPERING

-Come on.

-Lymphocyte?

-No, monocytes.

Classical monocytes carry the cell surface glycoprotein CD14.

For what do the letters C and D stand?

WHISPERING

-Cytokine defence?

-No, it's cluster of differentiation gene.

What term is applied to the process by which macrophages are able to ingest

and destroy foreign particles such as bacteria?

WHISPERING

-Endocytosis?

-Yes, that's right, or phagocytosis, correct, yes.

We'll take a picture round now. For your starter,

you'll see the name of a country written in its state language.

Ten points if you can name the country.

-Kazakhstan.

-Kazakhstan is right. In Cyrillic script there.

Your bonuses are the names of three more former Soviet republics as they appear in local script.

In each case, I want the English name of the country. Firstly, for five points, which country is this?

Any ideas?

-Lithuania?

-No.

-Any ideas at all?

-Is it Armen...? No.

-I'm going to try that.

-Armenia.

-It was Armenia, yes. Secondly, which country is this?

-Is that somewhere like Mongolia?

-That's not a former Soviet republic.

-Somewhere like that?

Tajikistan, Uzbekistan? I don't know.

Tajikistan would be a good guess.

-Tajikistan.

-No, that's Georgia. Finally, which country is this?

-Belarus?

-Belarus?

-Just because it's got a B-like letter.

-Why not? Belarus.

It is Belarus. Ten points for this.

Noted for a dialectic between man and machine called the Biomechanical Aesthetic,

which Swiss surrealist designed the eponymous entity and its environment for Ridley Scott's 1979 film Alien?

-HR Giger.

-Correct.

Your bonuses this time are on an adjective.

"The victorious" is the meaning of the Arabic name of which African city, referring to the arrival

in 974 of the Fatimid Caliph Al-Muizz, the city being established as the capital of the Caliphate?

WHISPERING

-Khartoum.

-No, it's Cairo.

The first active mission of the aircraft carrier HMS Victorious was an air strike of May 24th, 1941,

against which German battleship which sank three days later?

-Bismarck.

-Correct. Which African President, who died in 2003, had awarded himself the VC,

meaning "Victorious Cross", and had appointed himself CBE, meaning "Conqueror of the British Empire"?

-Idi Amin.

-Correct. Another starter question now.

What term for a blood feud between families, arising out of a killing...

-Vendetta.

-Vendetta is correct, yes.

Right, your bonuses are on sisters in literature.

Both performers in a song-and-dance variety act, the twin sisters Nora and Dora Chance are characters

in Wise Children, the final novel of which writer?

-Angela Carter.

-Correct. Cassandra and Julia Corbett, the former an Oxford don, the latter a writer,

appear in The Game, a novel of 1967 by which author who won the Booker Prize in 1990

and is herself the sister of a novelist?

-AS Byatt.

-Correct.

What is the surname of the sisters Ursula and Gudrun

who first appear in DH Lawrence's novel The Rainbow and are the central characters of Women In Love?

-Brangwen.

-Correct.

Another starter question.

Resulting from an impairment of voice quality such as a strain of the vocal cords,

what term describes the inability to speak normally

and is derived from the Greek for abnormal or impaired sound?

-Aphonia?

-Anyone like to have a go from Manchester?

-Aphasia.

-No, it's dysphonia. Ten points for this. "The struggle itself towards the heights is enough

"to fill a human heart. One must imagine that Sisyphus is happy." Which French literary figure...

-Albert Camus.

-Correct. That gives you the lead.

Your bonuses are on pairs of words that contain the same consonants in the same order, for example,

"delta" and "adult". Give both words from the definitions. Firstly,

"harsh, stern or severely simple"

and "gaze intently or obtrusively"?

Anyone?

"Austere" and "stare"?

-What?

-"Austere" and "stare".

-"Austere" and "stare".

-Correct.

"Device used to assist memory" and "person pathologically obsessed with a single subject"?

WHISPERING

-Is it "mnemonic"?

-Does that go?

-Yeah, and "maniac"?

-No.

-"Mnemonic" and...?

-Yeah.

-What, and "maniac"?

-Yeah.

-"Mnemonic" and "maniac".

-No, it's "mnemonic" and "monomaniac".

Finally, "halogen element, atomic number 53, used in solution as an antiseptic"

and "Norse deity known as All-Father"?

-"Iodine" and "Odin".

-"Iodine" and "Odin".

-Correct.

Another starter. F Scott Fitzgerald's was As Big As The Ritz. For Trollope...

-Diamonds.

-Diamonds are correct.

Your bonuses this time are on near-Earth objects.

Which Italian city gives its name to a scale which communicates the risk associated with near-Earth objects,

such as asteroids and comets?

-Torino.

-Correct. The Torino Scale assigns near-Earth objects a number from 1 to 10 based on two factors.

One is its kinetic energy, expressed in megatons of TNT. What is the other?

-Size or weight or mass?

-Yeah...

-Mass?

-You wouldn't know the mass. Go for the size.

-Size.

-No, probability of collision.

The Torino Scale assigns a kinetic energy of one megaton of TNT,

that is, more than 50 times that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima,

to objects of what approximate diameter? You can have five metres either way.

Probably quite small.

-What units did he say?

-Metres. Five either way.

70?

-70?

-No, it's 20. Ten points for this.

"Ultimately, it was hoped to make articulate speech issue from the larynx

"without involving the higher brain centres at all."

These words from a work of 1949 refer to which fictional constructed language?

-Esperanto.

-Christ Church, anyone like to buzz?

-Newspeak.

-Newspeak is correct, yes.

Christ Church, these bonuses are on divided islands.

The western half of the island of New Guinea and about two-thirds of the island of Borneo belong

to which Asian country?

-Indonesia.

-Yes. Which South American archipelago is separated from the mainland by the Strait of Magellan

and is divided between Chile and Argentina?

-Tierra del Fuego.

-Correct.

The island of Usedom or Uznam on the Baltic coast is divided between which two countries?

WHISPERING

-Estonia and Lithuania.

-No, it's Germany and Poland.

We're going to take a music round. You're going to hear a section of a coronation anthem.

10 points if you can tell me at which king's coronation the piece was first used.

MUSIC PLAYS

-Queen Elizabeth II?

-Christ Church, you can hear a little more.

MUSIC RESUMES

-George V?

-No, it was George VI. That was Crown Imperial.

Music bonuses in a moment or two. Here's another starter.

Which viral disease was deliberately released in both Britain and Australia in...

-Myxomatosis?

-Correct.

So the music starter which nobody got was part of Walton's Crown Imperial,

first performed in 1937. Three more pieces of classical music that premiered in that year.

In each case, I simply want you to name the composer. First, the American composer of this, please.

MUSIC PLAYS

-Aaron Copland?

-Yes, it is Copland.

Secondly, the English composer of this?

MUSIC PLAYS

-Vaughan Williams?

-Is he still alive?

-Vaughan Williams.

-No, Benjamin Britten, Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge.

-Finally, the German composer of this piece?

-MUSIC PLAYS

-Nominate Joyce.

-Carl Orff.

-It is. The only bit of Carmina Burana anyone knows!

Born in London of an Anglo-Irish family in 1870 and executed in the Irish Free State in 1922...

-Roger Casement?

-No. Lose 5 points.

..in 1922, which author's work includes the influential 1903 thriller The Riddle of The Sands?

Come on, one of you buzz, Christ Church. Right, I'll tell you.

Erskine Childers. What term was used from the late 14th century as an alternative for the English shilling

and also denotes the sloping line used when writing fractions?

-Solidus.

-Solidus is right, yes.

These bonuses are on place name elements.

Meaning spring or stream, what place name element is found in the names of two south coast seaside resorts,

one in Dorset and the other close to Beachy Head?

-Bourne.

-Yes. As in Bournemouth and Eastbourne. Meaning a promontory, what four-letter element appears

in the name of a Lincolnshire seaside resort and the largest town on the Isle of Sheppey?

-Come on.

-Ness?

-Correct. As in Skegness and Sheerness.

Finally, what Old English word meaning "the church of a monastery" is found in an inner London borough

and a Devon town noted for carpet-making?

-Minster.

-Correct. Another starter. "Cowards die many times before their deaths;

"the valiant never taste of death but once." In which Shakespeare play do those words appear?

-Henry V?

-Anyone like to buzz from Christ Church?

-Richard III?

-No, it's Julius Caesar. 10 points for this.

Give the final two digits shared by the years that saw the battles of Ancrum Moor, Naseby and Prestonpans

and the start of the Irish Potato Famine.

-54.

-Christ Church? Somebody buzz.

48.

No, it's 45. In mathematics, a tesseract is the four-dimensional equivalent...

-Cube.

-Of a cube, yes.

That gives you the lead. Your bonuses are on non-political details of UK Prime Ministers,

according to the website of the PM's Office.

Commemorated by a monument in the centre of Newcastle-upon-Tyne,

which Whig Prime Minister of the 1830s fathered seven daughters and ten sons?

-Earl Grey.

-Correct. Spencer Compton became the first PM to die in office

when, in 1743, he expired after one year and 136 days in the role. What was his title?

-Earl of Bute?

-No, he was the Earl of Wilmington.

Believed to have been the tallest in British history at six feet one,

who was the longest-lived former PM, dying the day before his 93rd birthday?

-Gladstone?

-No, James Callaghan. Mathilda, Eleanor, Eleanor, Mary de Bohun, Katherine of Valois,

Margaret of Anjou, Elizabeth and...

-Queens Consort of Plantagenet monarchs?

-Lose 5 points. ..Katharine of Aragon were the first wives

of English kings with what...

-Henry.

-Henry is correct, yes.

That gives you the lead again. Your bonuses are on island states of the Indian Ocean.

Name the country and the capital described. Firstly, the state whose capital is named after a paramour

of Madame de Pompadour?

-Mauritius?

-What's the capital?

-Let's have it, please.

-Sri Lanka and Colombo.

No, Mauritius and Port Louis. The state whose capital shares its name with the angel said to reveal

the Golden Plates that became the source of the Book of Mormon?

What's the island state called? Just give me some words!

Sorry, I can't think. Sorry.

-Let's have an answer.

-Sorry.

-Comoros and Moroni. Finally, the island state whose capital shares its name

with an Australian state and the capital of British Columbia?

-Victoria and the Seychelles.

-Correct. A picture round now.

You'll see a photo of the grave of a composer. 10 points if you can give me his name.

-Brahms?

-No. Christ Church?

-Wagner?

-No, it's Johann Strauss II. So another set of bonuses when someone gets the starter right.

10 points for this. Identify the work of 1908 in which these words appear.

"There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats."

-The Wind In The Willows.

-Correct.

Right, so we follow on from Strauss' grave in Vienna

with three more graves of composers. In each case,

I want the composer's name and the city in which it's located.

Firstly...

-Tchaikovsky and Moscow.

-No, Chopin in Paris. Secondly...

20th century, do you think?

-Go for a Russian.

-Come on!

-Rimsky-Korsakov in St Petersburg.

-It's Tchaikovsky in St Petersburg!

And finally...

-George Frideric Handel in London.

-Correct, yes!

Another starter. Which EU member state gives its name, in different forms, to words meaning

undressed leather with a velvety nap and large, yellow-fleshed turnip?

-Sweden.

-Sweden is right, yes.

Get these bonuses to be level-pegging again. They're on words indicating great size.

Which common adjective, now implying great size, originally meant deviating from the ordinary type?

-Extraordinary?

-No, it's enormous. Which synonym for colossal comes from the Latin for unmeasurable?

-Inordinum?

-No, immense. Finally, which word meaning very big is derived from a title character

of a book published in France in 1535?

-Gigantic?

-No, it's gargantuan.

The Aranyi, the Mercur-Avery and the Joachim are individual examples of what items,

named after a craftsman born in 1644 in Cremona?

-Violins.

-Specifically?

-Violas?

-No, they're... Anyone like to buzz from Manchester?

-Stradivarius.

-Correct!

Your bonuses this time are on visual illusions.

In 1900, the Polish-born US psychologist Joseph Jastrow introduced an ambiguous figure

that can be seen as a rabbit and which other animal?

-A duck.

-Correct. In 1980, Peter Thompson illustrated the illusion of reality in a facial image

with eyes and mouth inverted relative to the face, using a photo of which public figure?

-Thatcher?

-Do you reckon? Margaret Thatcher.

-It was, yes.

Which Austrian physicist gives his name to an illusion of 1866 of an ambiguous line drawing

of a folded sheet of paper?

-Name me an Austrian physicist.

-Come on!

-Mobius.

-No, Ernst Mach.

10 points for this. How many possible opening moves are there for white in a game of chess?

-Twenty?

-Twenty is correct, yes.

Your bonuses are on dietetics. Marasmus and Kwashiorkor are childhood diseases

caused by deficiency of which major nutrient?

Come on.

-Go for it.

-Vitamin D.

-No, it's protein.

What name derives from the Sinhala for, "I can't, I can't" and is caused by thiamine deficiency?

-Beri-beri.

-Correct. Endemic goitre is caused by dietary deficiency of which element?

-Iodine.

-Correct. Another starter. The Lives of the Caesars, a series of biographies...

-Suetonius?

-Correct! Your bonuses are on pilgrimage.

The Pilgrims' Way, which runs along parts of the North Downs Way, follows the 120-mile route

between Canterbury and which city? Come on!

-Winchester?

-Yes. The second-largest site of pilgrimage in France after Lourdes

is the Basilica of Saint Therese in which town?

-Tours.

-No, Lisieux. Which so-called pilgrimage constituted a major Tudor rebellion in northern England

-from 1536 against the policies...

-Pilgrimage of Grace.

-Correct.

Over time, a fixed observer on Earth can see well over half of the Moon

because the Moon wobbles in a dynamic phenomenon known as what?

-Precession?

-No. Manchester?

-Procession?

-No, libration. A large bay to the west of Greenland

and Canada's largest island, more than twice the size of the UK,

both bear the name of which English navigator, born around 1584?

-Cabot.

-No. Anyone want to buzz from Manchester?

-Raleigh.

-No, it's Baffin. Answer as soon as you buzz. What is the value of sine of 30 degrees

plus tan of 45 degrees plus the cosine of 60 degrees?

-Two?

-Two is correct, yes.

Your bonuses, Manchester, are on words that end in the syllable "no".

Give the word or name from the explanation.

A battle of 1859 in northern Italy at which Henri Dunant witnessed

-the suffering that led him to found the International Committee of the Red Cross?

-Pass.

Solferino. A clear liqueur made from black Dalmatian cherries and associated with Zadar in Croatia?

-Come on.

-Sorry.

-Maraschino. Finally, a city in central Japan, venue of the 1998 Winter Olympics?

-Nominate Kelly.

-Nagano.

-Correct. What body of water links the cities of Batumi, Samsun,

Sochi, Varna and Odessa?

-The Black Sea.

-Correct. Here are your bonuses on literature. In...

-GONG

Well, they just got away from you towards the end, Christ Church, but you were on pretty level terms.

Thank you for taking part and being so well-dressed.

Manchester, many congratulations. It's a terrific performance, 215. Well done.

I hope you can join us next time for another of these matches.

Until then it's goodbye from Christ Church, goodbye from Manchester

and goodbye from me. Goodbye.

Subtitles by Subtext for Red Bee Media Ltd - 2011

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